


The Ballad of Jesse McCree (formerly Last of the Longhorns)

by TomyrisDarkwarden



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Drinking to Cope, Falling In Love, Genji Shimada is a Little Shit, Graphic Description, Heavy Angst, Inspired by Poetry, M/M, Possible Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 07:02:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15261990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TomyrisDarkwarden/pseuds/TomyrisDarkwarden
Summary: An ancient long-horned bovineLay dying by the river;There was a lack of vegetationAnd the cold winds made him shiver;A cowboy sat beside him,With sadness in his face,To see his final passing,--This last of a noble race.





	The Ballad of Jesse McCree (formerly Last of the Longhorns)

**Author's Note:**

> *edit: Basically reposting this now that I have a little more experience on AO3 and with HTML in general.
> 
> So I had been wanting to write a fic implementing some old cowboy art and poetry and this just kind of became a thing.  
> An un-beta read thing.  
> See the endnotes for more information on the poem.

__

> _An ancient long-horned bovine_  
>  Lay dying by the river;  
> There was a lack of vegetation  
> And the cold winds made him shiver;  
> A cowboy sat beside him,  
> With sadness in his face,  
> To see his final passing,--  
> This last of a noble race. 

Jesse McCree unloaded another cylinder into the paper target across the range. He had lost track of the number of times he had loaded, fired all six shots, and reloaded.  
Normally it was meditative but these days it was becoming increasingly frustrating.  
McCree was a tiger caged. He was not dealing well with the backlash of the Rialto incident.  
He could deal with the death of Antonio Bartilotti. Hell, if he hadn’t imagined pulling the trigger himself.  
He could deal with the suspension. Even in the face of the Null Sector terror attacks, Overwatch was full of heroes who could do what it took to save the world.  
It was the infighting he couldn’t deal with.  
Reyes had been the closest thing McCree had to a father. His relationship, both working and romantic with Jack Morrison, was the standard to which McCree held all other relationships.  
And all of it was falling apart around him.  
‘One more chance.’ He told himself again.  
‘One more and if things keep going the way they are…’  
He knew they could never truly go back. But it was just so hard to let go.

> __
> 
> The ancient eunuch struggled  
> And raised his shaking head,  
> Saying, "I care not to linger  
> When all my friends are dead.  
> These Jerseys and these Holsteins,  
> They are no friends of mine;  
> They belong to the nobility  
> Who live across the brine.

_  
_

McCree was at a bar in Hong Kong when he heard the news.  
Swiss HQ was gone.  
Reyes, dead.  
Morrison, dead.  
Overwatch, disbanded.  
Everything Jesse had ever loved, had ever stood for, wiped out.  
He paid his tab, stopped by a liquor store on the way back to his hotel room, bought the biggest bottle of whiskey he could afford, locked his door, and cried.  
He cried for Jack and Gabe.  
He cried for the agents caught in the blast.  
He cried for Ana.  
For little Fareeha.  
For Lena, and Reinhardt, and Winston, and Angela.  
He even cried for Genji. He loved that little shit like his own little brother and with nothing and no one to cling to, where did that leave him?  
Mostly he cried for the friends he had burried along the way. It felt as if their work, their sacrifices meant nothing now.  
Finally he cried for himself. 

> __
> 
> “ Tell the Durhams and the Herefords  
> When they come a-grazing round,  
> And see me lying stark and stiff  
> Upon the frozen ground,  
> I don't want them to bellow  
> When they see that I am dead,  
> For I was born in Texas,  
> Near the river that is Red.

_  
_

He still hasn’t found who posted the bounty.  
Someone with deep pockets, obviously.  
Deep pockets filled with ill-gotten gains and a deep, dark grudge.  
Given the kinds of people McCree put away he had a few ideas but nothing he could ever really follow up on.  
And even if he did, what was he going to do about it?  
The bounty hunters didn’t bother McCree all that much.  
He would continue to evade them. He would continue to mete out his vigilante justice. And one day he would be too slow on the draw and some scumb sucking lowlife would shoot him.   
It was the story of his life.

> __
> 
> “Tell the coyotes, when they come at night,  
> A-hunting for their prey,  
> They might as well go further,  
> For they'll find it will not pay:  
> If they attempt to eat me  
> They very soon will see  
> That my bones and hide are petrified,--  
> They'll find no beef on me. 

_  
_

It was a blow to discover the truth.  
About Blackwatch.  
About Talon.  
About The Reaper.  
McCree decided he would take it the way he took most of the blows in his life, barring one terrible three day episode in Hong Kong.  
In stride.  
Peacekeeper, on the other hand, had plenty to say.  
When Overwatch called again, McCree answered.  
He spoke his piece out on the battlefield. Through the rows of Talon dirtbags he cut down and for the first time in a long time Jesse McCree felt at peace.  
Not just numb.  
At peace.  
It felt good to be back in the saddle.

> __
> 
> "I remember in the seventies,  
> Full many summers past,  
> There was grass and water plenty,  
> But it was too good to last.  
> I little dreamed what would happen  
> Some twenty summers hence,  
> When the nester came with his wife, his kids,  
> His dogs, and the barbed-wire fence.

_  
_

McCree tried not to dwell on his regrets. If he did he would have to balance them against the good times.  
The late night drinks with Gabe and Jack, the time Fareeha sprained he ankle and talked him into giving her piggyback rides everywhere.  
Sometimes when he was deep in his cups he would imagine a life he could never have. A life with a piece of land, a good husband, maybe a little one or two.  
Or maybe just the open road. See the world with his naked eye instead of from behind a gun.  
But he had also seen how easily a happy life could burn. He had seen the men unscrupulous enough to strike the match for some material gain. And he knew he was a part of the thin line standing between those men and the innocent.  
And then Genji walked back into Watchpoint Gibralter trailed by the most beautiful man he had ever seen.  
He had known that Genji had forgiven the brother who had ripped him limb from limb and left him for dead. That he intended to recruit him into this new family. McCree had constructed a solid, if strongly worded argument against the idea, but then he made the mistake of looking into those eyes.  
McCree’s every instinct told him to reach out to this man. To hold him and protect him. Not physically. Hanzo Shimada was a more than competent fighter. He was strong, quick, agile, and cunning.   
Wounds like Hanzo’s, however, couldn’t be seen with an inexperienced eye. Yet despite those wounds he was here. Trying to be better. Doing better. Doing good for the world. Doing right by his brother.  
Doing something about his regrets.  
He was amazing and McCree felt himself fall deeper and deeper in love every day.  
He shouldn’t.  
The Spector of Death followed all of them.

> __
> 
> His voice sank to a murmur,  
> His breath was short and quick;  
> The cowboy tried to skin him  
> When he saw he could n't kick;  
> He rubbed his knife upon his book  
> Until he made it shine,  
> But he never skinned old longhorn,  
> 'Case he could n't cut his rine.

_  
_

Jesse pulled Hanzo’s sleeping form close and nuzzled into the back of his neck.  
Hanzo made a brief noise of protest.  
“Jesse. Enough. Sleep now.”  
McCree chucked softly.  
“You sleep. I’m just enjoyin' the view, Darlin'.”  
Hanzo rolled in his embrace and looked sleepily into his eyes.  
He must have seen something because he snuggled deep into McCree’s arms before drifting back off.  
Jack and Gabriel’s love was once something Jesse aspired to.  
His and Hanzo’s love blew it out of the water.  
McCree’s heart ached with the intensity of it and he had to tighten his embrace to keep it from breaking apart under the strain.  
Death still held sway over them.  
There had been so many near misses.  
So many narrow escapes.  
Lena had been released from med-bay earlier today.  
McCree tried to put the image of the happy orange and blue speedster, bright crimson and hauntingly still, out of his head.  
Mercy had dug 15 pellets of shot out of her back. 5 more were too risky to move.  
McCree had put her on a transport back to London and Emily for a few months of recovery. He had overheard when Winston had made the call.  
McCree had made enough phone calls to loved ones to hear Emily’s sobbing despite not being anywhere near close enough to the receiver.  
And Lena had gotten lucky.  
It was only a matter of time, now.  
Someone was bound to come home in a bag.  
He wondered what he would do if it was Hanzo.

> __
> 
> And the cowboy riz up sadly  
> And mounted his cayuse,  
> Saying, "The time has come when longhorns  
> And cowboys are no use."  
> And while gazing sadly backward  
> Upon the dead bovine  
> His bronc stepped in a dog-hole  
> And fell and broke his spine.

_  
_

You don’t put as many bullets into as many bad guys as Jesse McCree has without making a few enemies.  
And you don’t make as many enemies as Jesse McCree has without accepting that one day one of them will have your number.  
At least he had repaid the favor tenfold.  
He had let Mercy know and done what he could to staunch the bleeding but there was a very good chance that she wouldn’t make it in time.  
It was a gut shot too.  
If she arrived too late there would be nothing she could do. Nothing any of them could do except try to make having his organs melted by leaking stomach acid as comfortable as possible.  
Hanzo wasn’t on this mission, thank God.  
He was safe at home.  
Home.  
When did Watchpoint Gibralter become “home”?  
Maybe it wasn’t.  
Maybe Hanzo was “home”.  
Mercy was at him again to keep talking to her, but he couldn’t think of anything to say.  
So he sang.  
It was an old cowpuncher song about the last of the Longhorn cattle. Free and easy when the grass of the west was long and wild and unfenced and the cowboys were long and wild and unfenced.  
He didn’t even know where he had learned it.

> __
> 
> The cowboys and the longhorns  
> Who pardnered in eighty-four  
> Have gone to their last round-up  
> Over on the other shore;  
> They answered well their purpose,  
> But their glory must fade and go,  
> Because men say there's better things  
> In the modern cattle show.

_  
_

**Author's Note:**

> *edit: Hope y'all have enjoyed the new and improved version of this fix.  
> If you have I would adore if you left a Kudos or a comment and come follow me on Twitter @TomyDarkwarden  
> K, love y'all.
> 
>  
> 
> Wow! I did not go into today expecting to write angst.  
> I had actually been kicking around a couple of different ideas including a true western AU, a Jurassic Park style AU, and some introspective character pieces.  
> All of which I interrupted to write this.  
> Like I said in the opening notes, I’ve been wanting incorporate some of the lesser known aesthetics of cowboy culture (I’ve already written a few pages about Hanzo wanting to run his hands all over McCree’s hand tooled leather belt.)  
> The poem I’ve featured is called The Last Longhorn and you can take a look at it here: http://www.cowboypoetry.com/thorp1921.htm#Chisholm  
> Much of cowboy poetry, like much of folk poetry, is passed around verbally, changed, sometimes recited, sometimes sung. It’s often nearly impossible to track down a creator. Sites like cowboy poetry.com are pretty good about doing their due diligence and being up front if they can’t find a specific poem's creator (like The Last Longhorn).  
> On that note, I appreciate y’all and all the Kudos y’all've left on my works.  
> Thank you guys so much for the love.  
> Love y’all!!!


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